Dementia funding falling behind: Buttrose

Australia's response to a dementia epidemic is falling behind that of countries like the UK, Alzheimer's Australia president Ita Buttrose warns.

Ms Buttrose says the federal government needs to match the commitment of British Prime Minister David Cameron to combat a chronic disease affecting 320,000 Australians and their 1.2 million carers.

The Australian of the Year has hit out at the government's failure to allocate $200 million over five years for dementia research in Tuesday night's federal budget.

"It's a question of priorities," she told reporters at Alzheimer's Australia's national conference in Hobart on Wednesday.

"I would put it to you that people's minds should always be a priority. After all, if you lose your mind you lose your life."

Ms Buttrose called on Australia to adopt several of Mr Cameron's reforms, including an end to using drugs to control dementia patients.

The British PM this week announced a $A46 million research funding boost and is using a trip to the US to put the issue on the G8's agenda.

Launching three new reports at the Hobart conference, Ms Buttrose called on local governments to ensure their communities were "dementia-friendly".

She said a nationally recognised symbol could be displayed by organisations and businesses which had trained staff in dealing with dementia sufferers.

And respite funding could be overhauled, with carers deciding how it should be spent.

"Every organisation in the community has to accept that people with dementia exist and have rights," said Ms Buttrose, who cared for her father when he suffered from vascular dementia.

"How would we all want to be? We'd want to feel part of the society."

Ms Buttrose said Australia faced an epidemic, with dementia already the third-largest cost to the health and welfare system.

"If we don't spend more money on research the outcome will be horrendous," she said.

"We will be overwhelmed by cost and there will be millions of people who will get the disease when perhaps they would not if there was more investment in medical research."

A spokesman for federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said the government had supported a range of dementia-related programs.

This included $268 million over five years for the Living Longer Living Better aged care package, which provided $41 million to improve dementia diagnosis, and a recently allocated $25 million for a centre for older people with cognitive decline.

The National Health and Medical Research Council has spent more than $165 million on dementia in the past decade, the spokesman said.

"The Gillard government is absolutely committed to providing funding for treating and researching Alzheimer's disease," he added.